Saturday, July 21, 2012

10

(originally published in The Outreach Connection in April 2006)

A good test for
sorting film buffs into relatively low- or high-brow categories might be to
assess their reactions to the title “10”
– does it evoke Bo Derek, or Abbas Kiarostami? (For anyone born in the last
twenty years, both names might evoke equally blank stares.)Usually, I suppose I would be on the more
culturally obscure side of that contest, but not here. For on watching Blake
Edwards’ 1979 movie 10 again
recently, I once again found it completely scintillating and mysterious, easily
achieving my basic pantheon litmus test of yielding new subtleties and
complexities each time I see it.

My Life with "10"

Some background is
necessary here. I probably first saw the film in Wales in the early to mid
80’s, when Dudley Moore was at the peak of the success that followed the
breakthrough 10 allowed him (he
received an Oscar nomination for Arthur,
kept his name above the title for ten or so more films of inexorably declining
quality, and came to a massively sad end). He’d been around forever in the UK,
and his mainstream Hollywood success was covered there with particular proud
intensity. The film also had Julie Andrews doing “adult” things, the
immediately iconic Bo Derek, and the long-established Edwards seeming to tap
his own middle-aged anxieties with a frankness that seemed mildly surprising at
the time. It was a period when the notion of a sophisticated adult comedy was
still somewhat thrilling. As a teenager, that put it pretty high up in the
roster of X-rated movies you had to get to, and I think I was more than
satisfied by the experience, for I returned to it many times.

In the film, Moore
agonizes about turning 42, and through all my earlier viewings this was a
pretty abstract concept to me. I read a line somewhere that the film’s object
lesson is that “possibilities are never lost, only the sense of them,” and
since I liked the sound of that (regardless of its applicability to this
particular film) it stuck in my mind as a reference point. Taking that as the
key, the film’s liberating qualities are more striking than its repressive
ones. And indeed, this chronicle of a wealthy Beverly Hills songwriter is
dripping with conspicuous consumption, a sense of easy privilege, and rampant
hedonism (embodied in particular by the telescope on Moore’s patio through
which he watches the endless stream of naked women in a facing house).

If you see it that
way, the very fact that he gets into bed with Derek is more significant than
the fact that he sours on her free and easy attitude and returns to his more
“mature” relationship with Andrews – this ending perhaps being merely a bow to
convention. Similarly, one of the things that tends to be “remembered” about
the film is that he rates women on a scale of 1 to 10, although this is an
extremely minor part of the film, to the extent that it’s not even clear
whether this is a contrivance of Moore himself or of his psychiatrist.

Dudley and Julie

Well, at least
five years went by until I watched it again the other week, and now the
prospect of being 42, although not quite at the doorstep yet, is certainly more
tangible than it used to be. And it struck me this time that the movie is
nothing to do with having lost and recovering the sense of existing
possibilities. Actually it might be closer to say the polar opposite – that
it’s about the necessary relinquishment of possibilities for the sake of the
stability of conformity. At its heart it’s about defeat, surrender and
self-belittlement, all rooted in the indoctrinated consensus of age-appropriate
behaviour.

The casting of
Moore and Andrews is key to this impression. The central role was originally
meant for George Segal, whom I love, but who would clearly have delivered a
more conventionally preoccupied portrayal. Moore on the other hand plays the part
with enormous individuality, in a way that must surely have carried some risks
– stuffed with Britishisms, whininess, obnoxiousness, homophobia and sheer
oddity. His lack of height almost makes the point too obvious – the man is a
spoilt child, who nevertheless happens to be a millionaire genius (and winner
of four Oscars!). At the same time, he’s restless for stability even if he
doesn’t know it, but the fact that the film finally comes down on that side of
the dilemma can’t overturn the feeling that this is a man who would be better
off going with his own tune.

The use of Andrews
is even more fascinating. I nearly fell off my seat this time round on
realizing she’s meant to be 38. Maybe I’m exaggerating my own youthfulness, but
I can’t in any way assimilate the idea of Julie Andrews here as being younger
than I am now. She’s self-righteous, hectoring, not sexy, not spontaneous, and
their final reunion has the distinct undertone of a man embarking on making
love to his own mother. This actually comes across as a terrific undermining of
the film’s supposed happy ending, rendering matters utterly perverse and
ambiguous. But at this point one has to remember that Edwards is married to
Andrews, a woman thirteen years younger than he is, and presumably doesn’t view
her in the same way I’ve described (one clue: although playing 38, she was
actually 43 when the film was shot). These are the ambiguities of which one’s
guilty pleasures are formed.

Blake Edwards

In the wake of my
enthusiasm for 10, I developed a real
enthusiasm for Edwards for a time, and regarded both S.O.B. and Victor Victoria
as among the best films of the 80’s. After I saw S.O.B. again recently, I felt obliged to revise that opinion down
drastically, although William Holden (in his last film, and looking like he
might have known it) always gets to me. I now think that Edwards was somewhat
messy and over-impulsive, and yet in possession of a deadpan style and
sensibility that at least sometimes achieved truly intriguing results. The Party and the early Pink Panther films for example have many
sublime moments, but always surrounded by a certain slackness.

10 is crammed with slapstick and knowing
low comedy contrivances, and I think a young viewer coming across the film for
the first time – without any sense of Edwards or of the principals – might find
it merely weird, arbitrary and unwieldy. If you come to it with some background
though you can see the real wryness in which it’s all based – how the endless
stream of physical discomforts heaped on Moore seems to embody the futility of
anything other than conforming, grindingly pushing him back into the place he
resists.

I can’t really see
the film objectively any more. Clearly it is not one of the ten best pictures
ever made, but if I were compiling a list for a desert island, I might have to
be honest and put it on there. On a scale of 1 to 10, it grabs me as though it
were an 11.

About Me

From 1997 to 2014 I wrote a weekly movie column for Toronto's Outreach Connection newspaper. The paper has now been discontinued and I've stopped writing new articles, but I continue to post my old ones here over time. I also aim to post a daily movie review on Twitter (torontomovieguy) and I occasionally tweet on other matters (philosopherjack).